Surprise, Elaina!

I gave Elaina a surprise birthday party with some of her closest friends.  She was so excited AND surprised!  Elephants are her favorite animal so that was the theme:

How can she be 6 already?

She has some sweet friends!

"Ellie" was her favorite Christmas gift- she played the games, helped open the presents and even ate some of the peanuts the other kids cracked open and ate at the party!

Birthdays celebration!!

We celebrated Owen's 8th and Elaina's 6th birthdays with the family tonight:

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas week with family!

The girls were so excited about our 1st "real" snow that they wanted to get outside to play!

Bakin' cookies with my girl!

Elaina and her Christmas Eve gift.  Owen had a fever  on this day so we didn't get our annual Christmas Eve family picture.

Santa pancakes for Christmas morning!

Great Nana and 5 our of 9 her grandchildren

We love visiting Nana and Papa's house!

Elaina's Nativity

Merry Christmas from Elaina!

Christmas Fun

We have had so many fun things this month, however still time to just relax.  A much better balance so far.  With so much going on in our own lives and around the world, we have had many reminders of our blessings and are thankful for each of them.  Lots more reminders to give our precious kiddos some extra hugs and kisses too!

I took the girls to see the Nutcracker with my good friend Kristin and her kids.  They loved it!!

Amazing Gingerbread House display downtown

This girl knows how to make a gingerbread cookie taste good!!

Christmas train at the mall

The Gingerbread Castle

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Even I made one this year- they're getting old enough to make their own without so much help!

Even though we tell our kids about St. Nicholas more than Santa, we still like to say hello to him every year when he comes by on the firetruck!  Plus, he hands out chocolate bars instead of candy canes!  :-)

Family photo

Here's our 2012 Family Christmas Picture:

Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween festivities were spread out this year due to Hurricane Sandy.  The pumpkin carving was last Sunday and trick-or-treating was moved to Saturday.  We had lots of fun!

Minnie Mouse... lots of mileage out of this costume!!

Our knight in shining armor

In Elaina's words- "I'm a pumpkin princess kitty cat!"